


Smoke Signals

by Mighty_Ant



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Backstory, Episode: s03e18 The Fight for Castle McDuck!, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pepper will take over the world with kindness and her fists, Pre-Relationship, Pretend Phantom and the Sorceress and Fight for Castle McDuck happened one after another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mighty_Ant/pseuds/Mighty_Ant
Summary: Pepper decides to check on her new partner following their failed Missing Mystery Mission.
Relationships: Pepper (Disney: DuckTales)/Phantom Blot (Disney)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	Smoke Signals

**Author's Note:**

> So I've fallen for another rarepair. At least they've interacted in canon this time!

The smell of smoke is emanating from the Phantom Blot’s laboratory. 

Patrolling Eggheads give his door a wider berth than usual, most trying hard not to even look in its direction. The glowing review Pepper gave him in the breakroom had little effect on her fellow Eggheads' opinion of him, possibly due to the fact that she went on a four minute tangent about her terrible airsickness on the way to Scotland, having never flown before. Though admittedly, also Pepper hasn’t exactly gone into  _ detail  _ with anyone about what happened at Castle McDuck. 

She describes it as a positive learning experience, that Blot was a good teacher and not nearly as creepy as his black hood would otherwise suggest. It’s uncharacteristically vague of her and might even sound ungracious to some who know her well, but of course that isn’t the case.  _ Of course _ Pepper wants him to make more friends, or at the very least not have the bulk of their workforce leaping out of his way whenever he stalks by muttering to himself. Nonetheless, there are certain things about their foiled mission that she wants to keep to herself. 

Things like the swiftly darkening shadow of a statue poised to crush her disrupted by a shock of green light, looking up and seeing the Blot standing frozen, arm still outstretched, letting the Blessed Bagpipes get away in favor of guaranteeing her safety. The band of his arm wrapping around her chest, startlingly gentle as he effortlessly plucks her off the ground and they make their retreat. 

Pepper hasn’t seen much of the Blot since they returned, but she doesn’t think much of it. He’s certainly busier than she is, brainstorming all sorts of magic destroying devices that he doesn’t even test out on the Eggheads like Black Heron does. He gave her a high five even though their mission ended in failure, and awkwardly patted her on the back when her airsickness got the worst of her on their flight back home in a fancy jet. She’s confident that she can count the Blot as her friend. 

That’s why Pepper doesn’t second guess herself as she marches right up to his door, knocking cheerfully to announce herself. There aren’t any alarms going off and no agents barking orders, so despite the increasing stench of smoke, she assumes that it isn’t anything to be worried about. 

“Mr. Blot? It’s Pepper!” she says as the doors slide open. Her smile slips at the sight that greets her. 

The Phantom Blot keeps posters of Magica de Spell on his wall. Entirely unlike the glossy posters of the Backstreet Bucks and New Ducks on the Block that she tore out of magazines when she was twelve, the Blot isn’t doing it out of admiration. His posters are more often than not taken from grainy Funzo’s security footage or news clippings from the Shadow War, blown up to 24 by 24 inches. He cycles through new photos every few weeks, though Pepper doesn’t know if it’s because he keeps destroying them or he’s simply keeping himself apprised of her whereabouts. But among the posters are lists, blueprints and maps, all of them detailing future plans and whatever new piece of tech he’s working on that week. 

In all, the Phantom Blot’s laboratory can typically be best described as organized chaos. 

Today, it’s simply chaos. 

There are blackened holes burned into the walls, floors, and ceiling, and several small fires have erupted on discarded piles of paper. His tools are scattered across the floor, his gauntlet among them. Every single poster of Magica has been incinerated. 

She finds the Blot in the midst of the destruction, hunched against the wall with his face, or lack thereof, hidden from view. 

Pepper takes it all in and doesn’t waste any more time before bursting into motion, crying, “Oh my gosh, Mr. Blot, are you alright?” heedless of the deadly, choking silence of the room. 

She makes a beeline for the fire extinguisher first. After nearly dropping it on her foot, she quickly rights her grip and pulls the pin. Lugging the heavy tank around, she quickly sets to putting out the small blazes around the lab. “I’ve set fire to my apartment a few times, too, I wouldn’t worry about it!” she reassures him over the spraying of extinguisher foam. “I’m sure we can get this place looking ship shape in no time, sir.”

The Phantom Blot’s voice trails out from beneath his hood, thin as glass. 

“Go away.” 

Pepper douses the last of the fires. “I…” she trails off at first, wondering if perhaps she was wrong, if she overstepped like she’s so wont to do. But her newfound courage surges through her once more, doubly strong. The Phantom Blot said they were going to conquer the magical world together. They  _ high-fived. _ Pepper is right to want to help, if only because no one else will. 

“I can’t leave you with this mess!” she says definitively, punctuating her statement with a firm shake of the head. “Just hang tight, pal, while I give the quartermaster a call. We’re gonna need some quick drying cement to fill in all these holes…”

“Don’t you listen?” the Phantom Blot demands, his already raspy voice deepening into a growl. He pushes himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the hand he has splayed against the wall.  _ “I told you to GO AWAY.” _

Pepper looks on in alarm, setting the fire extinguisher down with a clatter. “Hey, you don’t look so good,” she says, rushing to his side. She watches the Blot rear back at her proximity, but it doesn’t stop her from tentatively reaching out to him. “Here, why don’t we sit back down, huh, boss?”

“I’m not your boss,” he mutters, so quietly she might not have heard it if they weren’t so close. But he does fold back down, careful not to touch her or slump too quickly. Pepper joins him on the cold floor. 

“Okay. Mr. Blot it is, then,” she replies easily. She scans him as thoroughly as she’s able, but beside his hunched shoulders and the slight wheeze to his breathing he doesn't  _ seem  _ to be injured. But it’s so hard to tell with his darn cloak hiding everything down to his ankles. 

“Are you hurt?” Pepper whispers, like some higherup might be listening. Knowing Director Buzzard’s paranoia, she’s right to hedge her bets. “I didn’t hear any radio chatter about an attack.”

“No,” he says, speaking no louder than her. “No, I did this.”

Pepper glances back at the charred lab with a wince. “Yeesh. Well you sure did a number on the place.” She turns to him, leaning forward in an attempt to meet his eyes. “Can I ask what made you so mad?” 

She knows he has a temper, but the Phantom Blot is usually more precise about how he expresses it. A torched poster here, an evil rant there, he’s more likely to let his rage simmer quietly, an omnipresent cloud that follows him wherever he goes. He’s not one for bouts of senseless destruction, much less of his own belongings. For something to have made him mad enough to do _ all of this  _ and leave him so shaken and drained, well, Pepper is almost afraid to learn the reason. 

“The witch,” he hisses, low and deadly, as his hands tighten into fists. 

“I-I’m sorry?” 

_ “The witch,”  _ Blot explodes, his voice like scraping gravel. He staggers to his feet, looming over Pepper with acid green eyes blazing. “Magica De Spell! The bane of my existence and the very reason I abhor magic with my very  _ soul!  _ She’s back! Her powers have been returned to her through some insipid contrivance and I  _ squandered  _ the best opportunity I’ve had in decades to rid her evil from this world once and for all!”

Pepper leans back under his verbal assault, stunned not just by the Blot’s volume but his sheer vehemence. She and every other Egghead knows of his hatred for Magica, and Pepper can’t say she disagrees with it. After all, the shadows coming to life practically scared the bejeezus out of her, not to mention her poor safta. But this isn’t like his hatred of sprites or ignorant adventurers meddling with magical forces they don’t understand. This feels deeper, and far more personal. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Blot,” Pepper says, slowly pushing herself off the ground as the Phantom Blot stands over her with his chest heaving. “Really, I am. Is...is there anything I can do to help? Oh, are we going on a new mission to capture her—”

“You don’t understand,” he barks, stalking past her and over to his desk. He stoops to collect his gauntlet on the way, roughly shoving his hand inside and flexing his fingers. Pepper wastes no time in following him. 

“Explain it to me then,” she urges, righting a chair that he overturned in his destructive rampage. “We’re partners, PB.”

“Don’t call me that,” he mutters. His hands are fisted at his sides as he stares at the contents of his desk, most of it charred. She makes a mental note to ask the quartermaster about replacing it all, adding it to her order of quick-dry cement. 

“But we  _ are  _ partners, aren’t we?” Pepper reaches for his arm, hesitates, then moves forward again. The Blot’s forearm trembles beneath her gentle grip. 

For the span of several heartbeats, he’s silent. His gauntlet creaks as he opens and closes his fist. 

“Yes,” he finally says, not looking at her. “We’re partners.” 

Warmth blooms through Pepper, followed swiftly on the heels of relief. She makes no show of hiding it with her big grin, but reels it in for the sake of her next words. She’ll just have to hold onto her happy dance until she’s outside the lab. 

“You don’t have to tell me, but it might help to know why you hate Magica de Spell so much,” Pepper says, trying not to speak too quickly despite the nerves stirring in her stomach. “I mean, she’s the worst, I totally agree, but I can’t help but feel like you have a more important reason for wanting to destroy her. If it’s none of my business you’re totally fine to say ‘stop talking, Pepper’ right about now.”

The Phantom Blot doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move. Pepper doesn’t know if he’s even  _ breathing.  _

It’s all the proof she needs to know that once again she’s run off at the mouth. Pepper clamps her beak shut and turns around, prepared to leave. She’ll check in with the quartermaster before returning to the barracks, and return early the next morning to help the Blot with repairs. 

She doesn’t make it five steps. 

“I was…” 

Pepper whirls around at the Blot’s voice, cast in a murmur. His left hand is resting on his ruined desk, and though he stares down at it, she doesn’t think he’s actually seeing anything. 

“I was a blacksmith in my village, a long time ago. I did good work. Some of the best, in fact. We weren’t wealthy, but we were...happy. I remember we were happy. My daughter was seven years old when Magica De Spell arrived.”

Pepper’s stomach plummets like a heavy stone and she stifles her gasp too late. She stares at the Blot, cloaked in darkness, and knows at once that she doesn’t want to hear the rest of this story. But he doesn’t turn around, or stop speaking now that he’s begun. 

“The witch turned our  burgomaster into a snail, so all of us, everyone in the village, pooled our resources and every inch of wealth we had to convince her not to harm anyone else. But our desperation  _ bored  _ her and she destroyed...everything. Everyone. She razed the land to the ground on a whim.”

“How did —” Pepper stops herself before she can finish the sentence she’d already started to blurt. 

The Blot inclines his head toward her, though his gaze remains distant and unseeing. “How did I survive?” he asks. “I was in my smithy when it happened. A shield I’d forged of iron...huh...shielded me. Prevented the witch’s foul sorcery from destroying me as it did everything else.”

On his other side, the Blot’s gauntlet crackles with malevolent energy and ill intent. “As I stood among the ashes of my home, I decided then that nothing would stop me in my quest for vengeance. _ I will not rest until I’ve stripped Magica De Spell of every ounce of magic she possesses and ground her very ashes into the dirt beneath my heel—” _

Unable to hold herself back any longer, Pepper throws her arms around the Phantom Blot. He’s so tall she isn’t able to reach much higher than his waist, and beneath the strange, coarse material of his cloak that seems to absorb all the light around him, he’s painfully tense, every muscle pulled taut as though expecting an attack. For a few seconds, the crackling of his gauntlet grows in volume before both light and sound dim. 

“W-what are you doing?” the Blot demands, his voice cracking. 

Pepper sniffs, leaning back to dash away her tears on the leather of her glove. “Giving you a hug, silly.” 

The Blot shoulders are creeping up to where she imagines his ears to be. “...Why?” 

“I just thought you might need one, that’s all,” she answers, as evenly as she can. The last thing she wants to do is make him retreat into his shell, especially now. She begins to wonder if it’s time she let him go when the Blot’s arm settles tentatively across her shoulders, a warm, heavy weight that makes Pepper’s heart feel fit to bursting. 

Giddily, she squeezes him just a little bit tighter, drawing a startled  _ “oof”  _ from the Blot. After a few seconds, she releases him and stands sharply at attention. 

“Alrighty then, what’s the plan, PB?”

The Blot stares at her. “Don’t call me that. And w-what plan are you talking about?”

“The plan to defeat Magica de Spell, of course!” Pepper retorts, arm akimbo. “As your partner and your friend, it’s my duty to make sure that you get the revenge you so richly deserve! It’s you and me against the magical world, remember?”

“I...yes,” the Blot replies slowly, eyes wide behind his cowl. “I remember.”

Pepper beams. “Good! Now, let’s talk strategy! What are De Spell’s last known whereabouts? Should we stock up on iron? Does the iron in black beans count?”

“I think,” the Phantom Blot says, interrupting gently, “we should begin with the repairs to my laboratory, as you suggested.” 

“Sounds good to me,  _ partner,”  _ Pepper replies, nudging him with a playful wink. The Blot sighs, and she lets herself think of it as an  _ endeared  _ sigh. 

They’re nearly at the doors before Pepper’s big mouth catches up to her again and she says, as gently as she’s able, “if you don’t mind me asking...what was your daughter’s name?”

The Blot stops in his tracks. Before she can start rambling an apology, he looks down at her as the line of his shoulders loses its lingering tension. 

“Le ïla,” he murmurs. 

Pepper takes his hand (delightfully larger than her own in a way she’ll think about at a more appropriate time), squeezing gently. She lets go before the doors slide open and they step into the hall, a proper team. A unit. Partners. Pepper smiles as her fellow Eggheads gawk at her and when she looks up at the Phantom Blot, he nods once at her, glowing eyes crinkling behind his cowl. 

She smiles. Magica De Spell isn’t going to know what hit her.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> Pepper and Blot are different characters than I usually write, so let me know what you thought in the comments!


End file.
